


Please Leave A Tip

by reptilianraven



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, my first ever coffee shop au i think this is a milestone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:33:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reptilianraven/pseuds/reptilianraven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She orders a grande half-caff caramel frappucino with skimmed milk and no whip, to go, and she doesn't give a tip.</p>
<p>"Uh, name for that?" Stiles asks, permanent marker shaking slightly in his hand.</p>
<p>"Lydia." She says and she walks away with a slight, but nonetheless apparent, hair flip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Leave A Tip

**Author's Note:**

> this was written as a christmas gift for my little sister who loves stydia to death. merry christmas misha, i hope you enjoy this.
> 
> warnings: simplified chinese, pop culture references, Uno, and abuse of all caps and italics

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, morning has come and _Stiles has a headache the size of Jupiter raised to zenzizenzizenzic._

“Scott, the world is terrible,” Stiles groans out, “My head hurts and the lights are too bright. In the words of Grantaire—”

“Stiles, don’t even,” Scott interrupts.

Stiles drapes himself over the counter dramatically, “Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting them on the table in the guise of candles?” 

“It’s too early for you to be quoting Les Mis at me,” Scott sighs and Stiles snickers.

Stiles goes to the kitchen and finishes prepping everything up for opening time, continually thinking about how everything is terrible. Deadlines are terrible, so is procrastination, and work. All of it. The only saving grace in this world are Scott’s puppy eyes and Isaac’s angelic curls. All else that is good in the world has evaporated. By the time he comes out, Scott is flipping the sign on the door to OPEN.

“No, I can’t do this,” Stiles says as he leans against the display of muffins, “I’m running on two hours of sleep and five packs of gummy bears.”

“Hey, it’s your fault you crammed your paper last night,” Scott replies as he puts his apron on.

“It’s a good paper,” Stiles says as he gets behind the cash register just so that he can lean against something because standing is terrible.

“A good paper you could have written three days ago,” Scott tells him.

“But Scooooooooooooooooooott,” Stiles draws out until Derek steps in from seemingly nowhere. Stiles has a theory that Derek doesn’t walk, he just teleports and broods.

“Can you two shut up?” He says.

“But why must we shut up,” Stiles slumps onto the counter, “IF THERE IS NOBODY HERE.”

Of course that’s when the bell of the front door jingles with the arrival of the first customer of the day. All three of them straighten up and do their best at impersonating mature adults as the woman makes her way to the counter where Stiles is.

And wow. Is she something.

Strawberry blonde hair draped over her shoulders, an outfit that screams “I’m Hot and I’m Aware”, a look in her eyes that could probably kill an army, and a sway in her hips with each step that reverberates confidence and charm.

She orders a grande half-caff caramel frappucino with skimmed milk and no whip, to go, and she doesn't give a tip.

"Uh, name for that?" Stiles asks, permanent marker shaking slightly in his hand.

"Lydia." She says and she walks away with a slight, but nonetheless apparent, hair flip.

Scott gets to work making the order, which is ridiculously detailed for this time in the morning. She takes her coffee and leaves without another word.

“Well,” Derek says. “Whoever she is, I hope she comes back. That was the fastest I've ever seen Stiles shut up.”

\---

There are three things in this world that Stiles truly hates with all his being. 1) His old chemistry teacher from high school, 2) Rainbow Road on Mario Kart and, 3) The Morning Rush.

It’s The Morning Rush with a capital T, M, and R because mornings are frigging death sentences for coffee shops and somebody really should have told him that _before_ he started working at one. It’s ridiculous and stressful and nobody is nice or polite, everybody is just cranky and in need of their daily dose of caffeine. They aren’t even a popular coffee shop, the amount of customers they get makes no sense, Stiles thinks that the only reason Hale’s Café is so popular is because of their staff which mainly consists of male supermodels, (it’s unfair. Stiles is surrounded by dudes who look like they could bench-press a tow truck. In comparison, he looks like a noodley twelve year old.)

“Have a nice day,” He fake smiles at a particularly impolite businessman who takes his coffee and leaves. Stiles turns to Scott and mouths “Asshole.”

It’s nearing 9:30 in the morning and the rush is dying down. The queue at the counter is gone and only a few tables are occupied by hipsters and dying college students. The bell on the front door jingles and Stiles gets ready to let out a sigh until Scott perks up like a golden retriever.

“Allison!” He practically screams, unsettling some of the dying college students in the shop. Stiles will have to remind Scott about his inside voice.

True to his word, Allison “Emmy Nominated for Inspirational Layering of Clothing” Argent walks through the door with somebody else in tow. Not just anybody, but Lydia.

Lydia is starting to become a regular at the café for reasons Stiles can’t comprehend. Their coffee isn’t exactly spectacular here, no offense Derek, so the only reason you’d become a regular is if you’re in a relationship with one of the staff (ex. Allison) or if you’re a single mom ogling the staff (ex. 90% of the other regulars.) And Lydia doesn’t seem like she’s ogling anybody, half the time, she looks at the world as if it an inconvenience to her existence.

Not that Stiles is complaining. Lydia is great.

Sadly, Lydia has ignored all of Stiles’ efforts to strike up a conversation (and that one time he doodled a cat on her coffee cup. He likes to think that he saw her smile.) He gets that she owes him nothing, because hell yes feminism fuck the patriarchy, but he’s not going to lie, it puts a damper on his day.

But Allison is a trump card. Allison seems to be friends with Lydia. Stiles is friends with Allison. According to the transitive property of friendship, if Stiles is friends with Allison who is friends with Lydia, then _Stiles is friends with Lydia._

“Dude,” Scott says beside him. “I don’t know what’s going on in your head right now but you look like you’re gonna shit out a two story house.”

Curse his magnificent brain for thinking of the scientific method at inopportune moments.

“Hey Scott, Stiles,” Allison says. “I don’t know if you guys have met but this is Lydia, she’s been coming here for a while?”

“Yeah, in fact we have met,” Technically. “Hi Lydia,” Stiles says and Lydia does this glare thing. Stiles always thought that Glare was a fairly useless move in Pokemon but when Lydia does it, Stiles kind of wants to recede into a pokeball himself.

“Well I’ll have a moccacino,” Allison says. “And Lydia will have a…?”

“Chai latte,” Lydia supplies.

“Coming right up,” Scott says as Stiles cashes in the order.

In an unexplained frustration of somebody who is really tired of getting glared at, (Stiles gets glared at by Derek, impolite businessmen, and now Lydia? God, give him a break,) he writes Lydia’s name on her chai latte in simplified Chinese. By the time Scott actually puts the drink in the cups, Stiles has forgotten about it and he’s handing the order to Allison and Lydia.

Lydia takes her cup and raises her eyebrow at the scribble on the side.

_莉迪亚_

Lydia looks at him as if he’s suddenly interesting now. She looks at his name tag and says, “Stiles, was it?”

“Uh, yeah?”

She smiles, and it’s a sly smile, the kind of smile you’d see on Hannibal Lecter before he’d fucking eat you. It’s beautiful and Stiles is like totally terrified.

“My last name is Martin.” She says.

She leaves and Stiles is pretty sure he is frozen in a moment of eternal swooning. 

He counts today as a win.

\---

Stiles starts being unintentionally ridiculous with what he writes on Lydia’s orders.

It ranges from her name in Korean/Japanese/Yiddish to Shakespeare's sonnets to random facts about Socrates. He writes anything he can which is short enough to write in the span of ten seconds (because any longer and Derek would pull him from the cash register.)

The coffee cup writing sort of aids in how they became friends. It started out with Stiles writing Lydia’s name in binary code (01001100 01111001 01100100 01101001 01100010) and Lydia took one glance at it before grilling him.

“You wrote it wrong,” She says.

“What?”

“The last two digits, it shouldn’t be one zero, it should be zero one. Here you wrote Lydib instead of Lydia.” 

Stiles checked his phone translator and holy shit, she was right. “Aw darn.”

“Commendable effort, Stilinski.”

Two seconds later he declared himself on break and that’s how he learned that Lydia was actually a genius who has a double major in Software Engineering and Physics. This was also how Lydia learns that Stiles has a higher IQ than 70% of the world’s population and he thinks that that impresses her, (even if his intellect is mostly based upon random facts and years of reading encyclopedias for fun.)

So they become friends. Sort of. Well it’s a special kind of friendship based from mutual respect and the need for overly enthusiastic debates over controversial topics with a vocabulary that makes Scott and Allison cringe. 

(“I’m sorry, what did Stiles just say? Ob-obstreperous?” Allison says.

“I think they might just be making up words now.” Scott replies.)

It’s great. It’s _fantastic_. At this rate, he’ll be in “dateable” territory in a few months then Lydia will fall head over heels for him and his brain.

But then it all goes to shit when she comes into the shop one afternoon when Scott isn’t working so Stiles is alone at the counter, with Isaac cleaning up the tables. Anyways, she comes in linked at the arms _with a dude._

And wow, this dude is like, pretty hot. He’s got dark skin and suave black hair and _dimples_ , no way, this isn’t fair. He literally tall, dark, and handsome. And attractive. (What does this say about Stiles’ sexuality? Nothing much. Right now, Stiles’ sexuality is much like him standing in front of the fruit section at the grocery thinking “Wow these grapes are nice but these apples are also nice and fuck I want a watermelon.” The interpretation of the metaphor is different for every person. He doesn’t care. He just thinks everybody is a hot potato.)

“Hey Lydia!” Stiles says the moment she walks in, “And hello?”

“Stiles, this is Danny,” Lydia says referring to tall, dark, and handsome. “Danny, this is Stiles.”

Danny is all smiles when he extends a hand for a shake and Stiles takes it and thinks, _aw hell he’s even polite_ , “Nice to meet you,” He says. “So you’re the dude who drew a demon ward on Lydia’s coffee?”

Stiles laughs and he thinks that it’s going to be hard hating a guy this nice. “He’s a closet Supernatural fan,” Lydia says.

Lydia orders two toffee macchiatos and Stiles makes them in _the most passive aggressive manner possible._ It’s so bad that he forgets to put anything special on Lydia’s cup, so when she takes the order, she raises a quizzical eyebrow and leaves with a quiet “Bye, Stiles.”

“Have a nice day,” Stiles tries to say in the cheeriest manner he can muster but he’s pretty sure he sounds as sad as Sam Winchester when Jessica died.

When they’re out of the shop, Stiles miserably slumps over the counter like an invertebrate and says one very long and eloquent, “Fuck.”

Isaac stops cleaning a table and says, “Condolences?” before resuming his wiping.

\---

“What’s wrong with him?” Derek asks as he looks at Stiles moping over the cash register. It’s so pathetic that Derek almost pities him. Almost. 

“Earlier Lydia came in with a guy who was totally boyfriend material,” Isaac whispers.

“Scott!” Derek calls and Scott’s next to him in a second, “Stiles is moping.”

“Yeah?” Scott runs a hand through his hair.

“Fix it.”

“What!?”

Derek sighs and pinches his nose, “He’s depressing the shop, it’s bad for business. You’re his friend so you fix it. Either that or get Sylvia Plath over there a paper bag to put over his head so his face doesn’t bother the customers anymore.”

\---

“Lydia, I think you might be psychic.” Stiles says.

“I’m not psychic.” Lydia retaliates.

“THEN WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD AT UNO.” Stiles screams as Lydia skips him again.

He and Lydia were invited to Allison’s apartment for a movie night along with Scott and Isaac. He and Lydia think that they were just invited so that Allison and Scott don’t seem like they’re giving Isaac a blatant threeway invitation or something.

So they watched a movie and Scott, Allison, and Isaac just _fall asleep_. Like halfway through the movie Stiles realized that Scott stopped asking questions about Cloud Atlas so he craned his neck to see the three out cold.

It all seems very suspicious. But there was a deck of Uno cards on the table and he and Lydia couldn’t pass up a chance to have a fun game of “let’s ruin our friendship!”

Uno is a terrible game when there are only two players.

Lydia only has three more cards whilst Stiles has half the goddamn deck, and Lydia has been using reverse cards and skip cards like it’s the only thing she has on her hand.

She puts down another skip card.

“I give up!” Stiles says tossing all his cards somewhere behind his back.

“Rematch?” Lydia asks.

“No. No, god no. Uno one on one with you is suicide. You should have at least invited your boyfriend so that the game wasn’t as miserable.” He says unthinkingly.

“Boyfriend?” Lydia asks, puzzled.

“You know? Danny? Tall, dark, and handsome mega hacker?”

“Danny is gay, Stiles.”

“Really?” Stiles’ eyes widen.

Lydia looks at him sardonically, “That was a very enthusiastic reaction to my friend’s sexual orientation.”

“Uh,” _Oh fuck abort, abort, abort._

Lydia smirks and keeps on going, “I’m not dating anybody, Stiles. My ex just moved his ass to London so I’m taking a break from all that.”

“Oh.”

“But….”

But? BUT!? 

“But what?” Stiles asks as calmly as he can.

“I suppose you’re cute,” Lydia says and Stiles is done, he has left this earth, goodbye world, Lydia Martin called me cute I can die in peace, he thinks. “Plus, you’re actually smart.”

“Wait, are you saying that you knew that I was totally hung up on you?” Stiles inquires. Lydia makes a face and Stiles cringes a bit. “Okay, I get it. I broadcast my emotions like a very obnoxious radio station. Sorry?”

“Apology accepted and reciprocation pending,” She says. “Take me out on a date first and we’ll see where we can go from there."

“Oh my god I’m broke,” Stiles blurts out. “Date is a go though, but, just in case you run away from me after dinner, can I kiss you now?” He tries.

Lydia sighs, “If that’s your definition of a smooth move, then I can’t possibly ditch you afterwards because you have a long way to go, Stilinski.” She smiles, “But, alright.”

Hell yes.

_Hell fucking yes_.

\---

_Text from Derek to Scott_   
_-So did it work out? Did they hook up?_

_Text from Scott to Derek_   
_-idk man we fell asleep but when we woke up there were uno cards everywhere_

_Text from Derek to Scott_   
_-Uno is never good news. Uno means one of them killed the other. Lydia is probably hiding the body._

_Text from Scott to Derek_   
_-omfg well if stiles isnt moping over the espresso machine later then i guess everything went alright???_

_Text from Stiles to Derek, Scott, Isaac, and Allison_   
_-GUESS WHOS GOT A DATE MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!_


End file.
